Project Name: IH 35E Historic Resources Survey (US 77S to US 77N)

Project Location: Waxahachie, Ellis County, Texas

Project Type: Historic Resources Survey

Owner: Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), Dallas District

Hicks & Company historians prepared a TxDOT Project Coordination Request, Historical Studies Research Design, and a Historic Resources Survey Report for an 11-mile-long interstate improvement project on IH 35E in Waxahachie, Ellis County, Texas. Responsibilities included background research, developing historic contexts, conducting reconnaissance-level field surveys, providing National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) eligibility recommendations, and assessing project effects to historic resources. A total of 83 historic-age resources were identified. Five parcels with a total of 30 individual resources were recommended NRHP eligible, including a 1930s railroad bridge, a mid-twentieth-century campus for the Presbyterian Children’s Homes and Services, a former Texaco gas station, and an early twentieth-century house and barn. The project was recommended to have no adverse effects to historic resources and a de minimis impact to four of the NHRP-eligible resources.  TxDOT approval was received in March 2019.